Patient's Escape Was His Second In 5 Years

Escaped Mental Patient Also Had Fled In 1987

Mental patient Ronald C. Kearney vowed not to live on the lam again after a 1987 escape from custody, but he was back on the run Wednesday night, 24 hours after fleeing from a movie theater during an outing supervised by Connecticut Valley Hospital staff.

Kearney was discovered missing about 8:15 p.m. Tuesday, after slipping away when he went into the bathroom at a Berlin theater. But the police search at Berlin Cine 1 & 2, where Kearney and four other patients had been watching "Sister Act," didn't begin until as late as 10 p.m. because hospital officials notified police in the wrong town, local police said.

Newington police said they were notified by hospital security at 8:50 p.m. that the patient had escaped from custody at the cinemas in their town. About one hour later, after conducting a search of local cinemas, police learned that the patients were in Berlin.

Berlin police said they learned of the escape over the police teletype at 9:07 p.m. Hospital security personnel told them an hour later than Kearney had fled from the Berlin theater and officers were sent to search the area, said Sgt. Joseph A. Sazanowicz.

Wednesday afternoon, state police searched a wooded area on the Berlin-Meriden line with dogs after receiving a report of a suspect who resembled Kearney, a 33-year-old white man with long, dark hair and tattoos: a skull on his left biceps and a large bird on his right biceps.

The search started around noon and ended about 3:30 p.m. with Kearney still at large, and carrying about $100 he made from selling electronic equipment to another patient during the day Tuesday.

Kearney has been in the custody of the state Psychiatric Security Review Board, which moved the patient to Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown in July from the state's maximum-security mental institution. In 1986, a Superior Court judge in New Britain committed Kearney to the board's custody for

20 years after he was acquitted of assault and gun charges by reason of insanity.

Authorities have described Kearney, whom doctors diagnosed as a drug addict with anti-social behavior, as dangerous. Kearney, formerly of the Portland-Middletown area, has a criminal record dating from 1975, when he was convicted of escaping from custody by disarming a state trooper.

In 1986, he was charged with firing six shots at a girlfriend's house and assaulting the woman at a McDonald's restaurant where she worked. The judge acquitted Kearney and committed him to the custody of the Psychiatric Security Review Board.

About one year after his hospitalization at Connecticut Valley, Kearney was granted a pass to visit his family in the state. He fled to Florida. He lived there for about 13 months, working and living with a girlfriend who gave birth to his son.

In December 1988 Kearney turned himself in to state police, and told the Psychiatric Security Review Board that he wanted to take responsibility for his life and his son. The court convicted Kearney of escape in connection with the Florida stint, and he served a year in jail.

After serving that time, he returned to Whiting Forensic Institute in Middletown. In July, the board moved him to the hospital where he had limited privileges. Last month, Kearney was granted more freedom in light of his progress at the hospital.

Martha Lewis, executive director of the psychiatric review board, said Kearney should be held in an intermediate, medium-security hospital if the state were to build one.

With an intermediate facility, patients would have a more gradual transition into the community, she said. State mental health officials have proposed that type of hospital since David Peterson walked away from the hospital and stabbed a 9-year-old girl to death in Middletown in 1989, but the legislature has not approve the money for one.

Dr. Nestor Praderio, director of the forensic patients at the hospital, said Kearney had been allowed into the community under staff supervision on at least three other occasions in the past month. Tuesday night, two staff members supervised Kearney and four other patients on a routine outing to the movies.

When Kearney went into the bathroom, a staff member stood outside, said Judith Normandin, hospital superintendent. When he didn't come out of the bathroom, a search was begun and hospital police were called within 10 minutes, she said.